Eggplant pizzas

I have a few "black hole" type time sucks on the internet, with Pinterest being one of the big ones.  The good thing is that sometimes I get really great recipes and recipe inspirations.  This one was based originally off of a Julia Child recipe, and then was adapted by this website http://www.joysama.com.  I made a few changes based on what I had around, but wanted to credit my source of inspiration!

These took a little bit of time, but were super easy and delicious!  I made these for 1, so double, triple accordingly.

You need:

1 medium sized eggplant

2 tomatoes diced

1-2 cloves of garlic minced

1 small shallot minced

1 tsp. tomato paste

olive oil

dried pizza seasoning

oregano

basil

salt and pepper

pizza cheese, shredded

Start by pre-heating your oven to 375 degrees and slice your eggplant to about 1/2 inch slices.  Liberally sprinkle both sides with salt (I use kosher or sea) and then let them sweat out their moisture on two stacked paper towels for 30 minutes.  

 

 While they are sweating it out (which keeps them from getting rubbery when roasted), you can get your sauce ready.  I chopped up the garlic and shallot and got them cooking over low heat in a little olive oil.  Then I chopped up two tomatoes and a bunch of fresh oregano from my garden (maybe 2 tbsp?) and add them, along with the tomato paste to the saute pan.  Let them simmer slowly until the tomatoes break down a bit and it gets thick and sauce-like.  Then turn off the heat and it will thicken up even a little more than pictured below.

 Once the 30 minutes are up, use a dry paper towel to wipe off the remaining salt, and then place the slices on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil and sprayed with cooking spay.  Brush each slice with a little olive oil and sprinkle some pizza seasoning on them.  Pop them in the oven and bake for about 25 minutes.  You can then julienne your basil (stack the leaves together, roll them up, and slice them thinly into little ribbons.)

When they come out, top each one with some of the sauce, some basil ribbons, and plenty of pizza cheese!

 


















Lastly, pop them under the broiler for just a few minutes.  I did 5 and it was too long, or I had them too high in the oven because they got a little bit too toasty (although they were still delicious!)  My best advice is, watch them closely!

Here are a few that didn't get as burnt!  These taste so good that I almost felt guilty eating them.  I had to keep reminding myself that really they only "bad" thing for me in it was the little bit of cheese!  Give them a try!